I first saw Charlize Theron in 1996's "2 Days in the Valley"; "That is a beautiful woman," I
told a friend, having no idea what a star she would become. The next year she played Keanu Reeves' wife in "The Devil's
Advocate", a film that got lukewarm reviews but that I liked.

Theron grew up on a farm in South Africa. She was trained as a ballet dancer, but at age 16 was sent
to Milan to be a model. Tiring of that, she moved to New York to perform with the Joffrey ballet; a knee injury, however,
caused her to move to Los Angeles and take up acting. Besides the aforementioned films, she's appeared in "Celebrity",
"The Cider House Rules", "The Legend of Bagger Vance", and "The Italian Job". In 2003, she stunned critics with her
astonishing tour de force performance in "Monster", which won her the Academy Award for Best Actress.